Page 58 of Disguised as Love

We were on the road to the estate before I could even remember I’d left my car in the valet parking at the Passage. It didn’t matter either. Someone could fetch it. We rode in complete silence until we got to the gates of the Golden Palace, and I had to show my face and punch in the code because the car we were in was as unknown as its driver.

She parked on the drive at the front door.

“I’ll stay until Malone gets back,” she said.

“Woods. He goes by Woods,” I told her, but who knew if he’d still be going by that name. If Damien had figured out who he was, he couldn’t come back to the palace. Rurik would have him killed.

I got out, opened one of the massive front doors, and she trailed me inside. I didn’t go to my room. I headed straight to the drawing room and the side table with the alcohol decanters. I poured myself a glass of vodka and then waved the bottle at her. “Do you want some?”

“No,” she said and then changed her mind. “Actually, yes.”

I poured the clear liquid into a second glass and handed it to her. She downed it, looking around the room as if there was a dragon ready to leap from the corners.

“What should I call you?” I asked.

“Nothing. I won’t be here long enough for you to need a name. I shouldn’t be here at all, but Ma—Woods fucked up. I never would have expected it from him.”

Her eyes took me in, narrowing as if considering me, and then she simply held out her glass for a refill. I obliged, and we both downed them as if they were shots and this was a sorority party.

“You’ve screwed with his head,” she said, and I bristled.

“I didn’t ask him to come,” I growled. “It would have been easier for me to be here without him.”

“You’d be locked in a room with Damien Volkov if he wasn’t here.”

Fear shivered through me at that thought, but I refused to let it show. “Ilia would never have allowed that to happen.”

The woman scoffed. “Look, Ilia’s a decent guy from what I can tell, but he’s disposable.”

“Not any more than Woods is to the people here.”

“Woods has something Ilia doesn’t,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Power. You look at Ilia, and you think tough bodyguard, wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley. You look at Woods, and you know he has connections. That if you put him down, there’s going to be an army coming after you.”

I held my breath because it was true. I’d thought the same thing at the boutique. At the time, I’d thought it was just the insane connection I felt to him that had me thinking he exuded power and command, but maybe it was just built into him. Ilia was a brute enforcer, but Cruz was an emperor.

The exhaustion that hadn’t escaped me since arriving in Russia landed on my shoulders heavy and hard. I put the glass down and headed for the stairs. She followed me.

“Where are you going?” she asked as we made our way up a flight and then down the hall.

“Bed.”

When I opened the door to my bedroom, she pushed me back, cleared it, and then let me inside. It was obvious she had experience as a bodyguard, but she was also somehow more. An assassin. Sent by Cruz and the FBI. That thought chilled me, just like the thoughts of what Ilia and Cruz might be doing to Damien did. Whoever she was, it was obvious she and Yano had history, because Yano had known her and been frightened. Cruz was using that past to his advantage, just like he was using me.

“I’ll be outside the door if you need me,” she said and retreated.

I shed my clothes, pulled on a pair of sweats, and dove under the covers, wishing I could forget everything that had happened. Instead, my mind whirled with Damien’s nastiness, Cruz’s kisses, and my brother’s hard face holding two guns at someone he claimed was a friend. I thought of Papa and how he had never let the dark side of his life touch Mama or me. We’d just been a wealthy family living out their dreams in the middle of Russia. I missed him. I was scared for Malik and Cruz and sickened at the thought of people dying, even people I knew were evil, like the Volkovs. And for the first time ever in my life, I wished I was my mother. I wished I could lose all my thoughts and feelings to alcohol and maybe some drugs on the side.

It would be easier to forget than continue to feel.

Even as I tossed and turned while reliving the day, my body clamored for sleep, and eventually, my eyes closed, and my limbs sagged. I let myself drift into a slumber that was hardly blissful but was at least forgetful.

Cruz

WHAT I’VE DONE

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